Week 6 Blog - Teaching Rewriting

Between reading this chapter, one of our class discussions, and my experiences as a Writing Tutor, I remember, all too well, a student's wincing, pain stricken face when they realized that they needed to rewrite their carefully handwritten ten page paper. Try as I might to convince students to at least have a working draft (started at some sort of organizing point, after brainstorming, chunking, etc.) in some sort of computer file, so many students felt they could not compose that way. I cannot think of a more frustrating situation for a student to find themselves in; the whole process is rife with blocking every ounce of creativity out of one's writing. Lack of basic computer literacy is one reason and this is particular troublesome because trying to learn to write AND learn how to use a computer is a lot to ask of some students during a tight timeframe.